SCOTUS screws over Alabama, pauses lower court's order to redraw map, keeps bad map

[Nevilledog]

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Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
🚨⚖️COURT ALERT: SCOTUS grants Alabama's request to pause a lower court's order to draw a new congressional map with 2 majority-Black districts, effectively ensuring that the current map will be used in 2022 elections while the appeal is litigated.

democracydocket.com
🚨 Milligan v. Merrill Appealed
Read more.
3:19 PM · Feb 7, 2022

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1490810082002706435.html

Mark Joseph Stern

BREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals in dissent, the Supreme Court halts a lower court order that required Alabama to redraw its congressional map, which diluted Black votes in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court's order and dissents can be found here. supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…

This is another major blow to the Voting Rights Act that will likely preserve Alabama's current racist gerrymander.

The Supreme Court also granted cert in this case and will issue a decision later this term—teeing up the opportunity to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act's remaining protections for racial minorities against gerrymanders that dilute their voting strength.

I should note that while the Supreme Court may calendar the case for this term, it's possible that it will kick it to next term, so I am not completely certain when a decision will come down. (Whenever it does, today's order all but ensures it will be catastrophic.)

Kagan's dissent is furious, and again criticizes the shadow docket: "Today’s decision is one more in a disconcertingly long line of cases in which this Court uses its shadow docket to signal or make changes in the law, without anything approaching full briefing and argument."

Kagan, dissenting: The court's decision today "does a disservice to Black Alabamians" who "have had their electoral power diminished—in violation of a law this Court once knew to buttress all of American democracy."
supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…
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Today's decision marks yet another instance in which the 6–3 majority made the difference. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberals in denying the stay, but his vote doesn't matter: Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanauagh, and Barrett control the court.



Expect more of this, screwing us out of slim gains.

Yet, SCOTUS wouldn't stop implementation of blatantly unconstitutional TX abortion bounty case.

[RKP5637]

1. Balanced scales of justice, yeah, right. Political as hell. n/t

[turbinetree]

2. And just think old Neil Gorsuch had a Federalist Society brewha in Florida behind

closed doors with no press coverage.....wonder what he was thinking about this case and did he speak about it....and Roberts is trying to walk around and say that the US Supreme Court shouldn't be "political"..... while he dismantled the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and just this year 52 senators just fucking threw voting rights out the window...by retaining the fucking "filibuster".....you think that maybe its time to do a #Resistance moment ........ I'm all in......

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. From Michael Li at the Brennan Center

Link to tweet

[Nevilledog]

4. Granting it specifically so the racially gerrymandered map will be used in 2022.

This stuff makes me sick to my stomach. The SCOTUS is corrupt.

[bluestarone]

5. How do they get such a speedy decision?

They (SC.) sit on decisions we are wanting. I feel that the plan is to rule for us ONLY when they have to. (last minute bullshit) That's how i feel!

[Nevilledog]

7. Shadow docket....they grant or deny stays w/o briefing or arguments

[JanMichael]

6. It has always surprised me that something like "The Pelican Brief" has never happened.

[budkin]

8. Roberts is panicking now

He knows that the court gets more political by the case.

[Nevilledog]

9. Roberts is irrelevant. The Alito 5 fascists are in charge.

[spanone]

10. Yes, SCOTUS wouldn't stop implementation of blatantly unconstitutional TX abortion bounty case.

Coup Court

[FBaggins]

11. Not all that much of a surprise

The AL maps in question are barely changed from what has been in place for the last decade (and probably the one before). The unusual decision was a district course to not only overturn them, but to do so just a few weeks before the primaries.

Not sure how the decision will play out on the merits, but it's probably too late for it to take effect before the 2024 elections

[WHITT]

12. WHAT?

The RightWingers flex their fascism.

[gratuitous]

13. Another election held under unconstitutional auspices

And the newly-elected powers that will be in Alabama will get to work on the new districting map. Which will likewise fail to pass constitutional muster, but that decision will be made too late in the election cycle, so the new map will have to be used in 2024 to elect an new legislature, which will propose a new districting map . . . And you see how this is going?